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Reading & writing · Grades 8–10

The survey at the cycle rack

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The survey at the cycle rack

A transport committee wanted to know how pupils travelled to school. Volunteers surveyed people standing near the cycle racks and found that 68% of respondents cycled. The result looked precise, but the location made cyclists easier to reach than pupils arriving by bus or on foot. A later survey used randomly selected registration groups and recorded nonresponses. Its result differed. The committee did not call the first volunteers dishonest; they had collected real answers from a sample that did not match the question about the whole school.

Try it yourself

  1. What was the committee's intended population?

    1. all pupils at the school
    2. only the volunteers
    3. only people beside cycle racks
    4. only bus drivers

  2. Why did the first location create a sampling problem?

  3. What does the 68% accurately describe without further assumptions?

    1. the next year's travel pattern
    2. all residents of the town
    3. the proportion of first-survey respondents who reported cycling
    4. all pupils with certainty

  4. What improved in the later method?

  5. Why did the committee avoid accusing volunteers of dishonesty?

    1. The first survey was automatically perfect.
    2. Sample design never matters.
    3. Real answers can still come from an unsuitable sample.
    4. The volunteers gave no answers.

  1. State one remaining limitation to check in the later survey.

Answers and marking notes

Answers and marking notes
  1. all pupils at the school

    The research question concerned the whole school.

  2. Cyclists were more likely to be near the racks, so other travel modes were underrepresented.

    Credit selection related to the measured behaviour.

  3. the proportion of first-survey respondents who reported cycling

    The result is conditional on the sample.

  4. Participants were selected from registration groups rather than a travel-mode-specific location, and nonresponses were recorded.

    Credit sampling approach and transparency.

  5. Real answers can still come from an unsuitable sample.

    The error concerned inference and selection, not necessarily fabrication.

  6. Whether selected pupils responded, whether groups were truly randomly chosen, or whether the question was understood consistently.

    A better method still requires evaluation.

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